Armed guards defend butterflies

Rangers protect nesting grounds from loggers

Ioan Grillo, The Associated Press

Published 10:00 pm, Friday, December 16, 2005

SIERRA CHINCUA, Mexico -- With assault rifles over their shoulders and body armor strapped to their chests, Roberto Paleo and his 17 officers are among the world's most heavily armed park rangers. Yet they guard one of nature's most delicate creatures -- the monarch butterfly.

The rangers say they need the weapons to protect the winter nesting grounds of millions of orange and black butterflies from armed gangs of illegal loggers in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve.

The monarchs are not listed as endangered, but scientists say the deforestation could threaten their existence.

Although a single butterfly can spend its entire life in the United States or Mexico, they are born with the instinct to migrate. Most do, traveling in the millions from Canada to a mountainous area in central Mexico each year to carpet fir trees that provide shelter -- a wonder that attracts about 200,000 visitors annually.

"The forest is like a blanket and umbrella to protect the monarchs from the cold winters," said Lincoln Brower, professor emeritus of zoology at the University of Florida who has been studying the butterflies for nearly 50 years. "If the forest disappears, we could lose one of the wonders of nature."

Last season, 22 million monarchs reached the park, an 80 percent drop from the previous year, prompting the Mexican government to set up the special police force.

Aided by hidden video cameras and communicating with special radios to avoid scanners, the officers speed around in all-terrain vehicles, looking for loggers in the rugged area, which spans more than 124,000 acres.

Illegal logging in Mexico generates millions of dollars a year. And while the rangers have seized eight pickup trucks full of timber, they have yet to catch a logger, Paleo said.

Still, Francisco Luna, the Michoacan delegate for Mexico's federal environmental protection agency, says the mere presence of the police has deterred logging gangs. "They know we are here and that we are going to take away their vehicles and arrest them," Luna said.

Some environmentalists worry the police force may not be enough. In 2003, 100 loggers armed with shotguns and machetes held three park rangers hostage for six hours while they chopped down trees.

"These loggers are heavily armed, organized groups who are sometimes linked to drug traffickers," said environmentalist Homero Aridjis, a Michoacan native who has been campaigning to protect the monarchs for three decades.

Mexican authorities aim to have more than 100 officers by the middle of next year, supported by volunteer patrols, mostly local farmers.

"We have to protect the forest to keep the supply of water we need for our crops," said farmer leader Juan Rojas. "And we want to look after the butterflies. They are part of our patrimony."

Scientists have tracked the butterfly numbers only for the past decade, so it's not known whether last year's drop is typical. Mexican authorities think the numbers will rebound this year to more than 60 million.

"The monarch has become a symbol for cross-border cooperation in North America," Aridjis said. "Let's hope it doesn't become the symbol of our common failure to protect the environment."